The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

You definitely do! I'm sure you could make great things with it.
I did not want to get the asylum at first, but a friend was doing daily pictures with it and wearing me down LOL

I also have the Deranged Alley. I do love the subway station, but don't think I'll have much use for it.

 

I remember you posting these, love the composition and the brick tile texture paper you used. I was considering getting this set for a while now.


But I did find some items visually similar that look equally good. Rafter vents and undergravel filters. With some silver spray paint they make for quick and easy sci fi walls and flooring.

 

Right, I wanted to go to the store yet to see if I can get similar items. They look great and are an easy way to achieve what this set does:

http://news.toyark.com/2018/02/22/nova-ubiquitous-ub-01-modular-diorama-set-hand-gallery-290523

 

And you get so much for a single sheet too. I got three just in case but you can make some nice long corridors with them if you wanted. The undergravel filters are a bit more expensive. I saw that too, I'd love to get one of those sometime. That was another of my inspirations. I also had some parts from the 80's GI Joe headquarters playset. The motor pool parts of it fit in great too. Here's a quick scene I threw together.

 

I've been wracking my brain on this for a few months, which is one of the things that have been slowing me down on my figure project and now I think I finally have a solution.

TBH, ever since disassembling a Hasbro Black Series 6" figure, I've considered their ankle joints to be some of the best out there. I'm pretty sure they're patented, so I've been trying to come up with a way to create limited, more realistic motion on characters' ankles than most figures. I *think* the answer might be truncated ball joints. Need to do some testing, of course, but I now have a plan that won't get me sued if it works.

There are some serious gaps in the AA/DST lines that need to be filled. I even have a *legal* distributor in mind, but I need to discuss it with them, as well...duh.

For the customizers out there, ever worked in silicone? Not the molds, but the final product. How would one go about adding color details to a silicone cast part? Colorized silicone "painted" or sprayed on? Smooth-On has a product that, if I'm reading it right, is meant for just that, but I need to find out, for sure.

I personally love how AA/DST and NECA use silicone pieces for parts that may need some flexibility.

I'm also working with someone on some TOS dioramas and I've finally found a construction photograph of the Refit Bridge that has answered a question I've had for 20 years that had originally caused me to give up on my old, old CG bridge set.

After I get a couple of these projects out of the way, I would love to hear some suggestions on diorama elements that I could digitally model and then print/CNC cut and then cast (such as floor grating, wall sections, doors, consoles, etc.).

Shapeways is just too damned expensive to allow for a fair price to consumers.

 

Today marks the day of "Gotham" finally returning to TV. To celebrate that, I recreated a scene from a few months ago where Bruce had left Alfred in the middle of the woods to go to a party, and when Alfred arrived he was not amused and smashed the record player so that pieces of the record were flying everywhere. I made some from FIMO so that I could break them.





And then the day was made awesome by a comment from the man himself:

 

I want this figure now more than ever!

 

The Diorama/Playset Gods have answered my prayers for 2018. I'm itching to get both of these.

Neca with this lovely apartment complex


And playmates with this new sewer playset.

 

Dug this out of my photo files. This is from early 1980, when I had not quite turned 13. Boy, did I need a haircut!

Anyhow, in the photo are models of the Klingon battlecruiser, Spock with the snake (unpainted), shuttlecraft, and Romulan bird of prey. My Enterprise model was elsewhere at the time. Also in the photo are the story lp, the TMP mini-poster from the soundtrack lp with a poster I made behind it (my Kirk, Spock, and Ilia looked about like the artwork on the cover of Bjo Trimble's 'On The Good Ship Enterprise' ) the Mego Kirk and Spock, and the 1976 calendar. What's also there but can't be seen are the TOS blueprints, the Mego communicator pair, the Remco phaser, the AMT exploration set, and a wooden phaser that my dad made for me.

 

After decades in business making kids of all ages happy, Toys "R" Us looks like it's doomed.

 

I visited my local Toys R. Us today and things seemed pretty normal. The staff didn't know what the fate of their store would be. No liquidations or sales.

 

Damn, that really sucks.

Most of my toys in the late 60s through the 70s came from Newberry's/McCrory's and they have been gone for around 20 years already.

I just checked and am glad to find that the Johnson Smith company is still in business. That's where most of my AMT Star Trek model kits and some Trek books came from in the 70s.

 

Kay Bee folded in the last decade and went out of business. Kmart just closed down and is no longer in existence. And now TRU looks like it's about to disappear from the retail landscape after all these decades and millions of loyal customers who grew up with the store. It's pretty sad.

A piece of our childhoods is about to vanish and with it the toy shopping experience as we knew it.

 

There are still some Kmarts open. There's one about 20 minutes from me that's still in business. Picked up a Power Ranger movie figure there recently.

True. I lost my local TRU about three years ago, so today's news is pretty much the final nail in the coffin as far as I'm concerned. The saddest thing is that this didn't have to happen. The current folks running TRU did very little to turn the company around when it got in serious debt awhile back and after failing to get another lifeline, have now decided that it's better to just get cash from liquidating the company rather than invest in it anymore.

For me, TRU joins the list of beloved toy stores like Children's Palace and Toy Chest that I've lost for various reasons. IMO, it's also a major blow to the toy industry in general, because one of the biggest retail outlets is closing its doors. It may impact online toy stores if companies like Hasbro and Mattel start becoming more selective about what or how much they produce in order to stay financially viable. It's also possible that we might see toy prices really skyrocket too in the future.

 

Adapt or die. They had some Toys 'r Us rep on the morning news today blaming Amazon for their failure. I laughed. Last time I visited one (in Florence, Ky.), I saw exactly one employee, the one running the customer service/checkout. Most retailers now have the shittiest service possible. I actively avoid going to them unless I absolutely, positively need something that day. Even then, many times they end up not having what I'm looking for.

I used to love to go shopping for things I wanted. Now? It is a mostly painful experience.

 

It doesn't help that they insist on charging more for the same items than most of the other brick-and-mortar chains and don't have as many in-store sales as they once did. Restocking has dwindled and they seem to get fewer new items than they used to and it takes them longer to mark down existing stock to get rid of the old stuff on the pegs and shelves. When you give shoppers fewer reasons to shop at your store you're going to lose customers no matter how old and loyal.

 

TRU's collapse is estimated to cost the toy industry a full 10 to 15 percent of all its sales. With the toy business making markedly less money in the wake of the biggest remaining toy retailer disappearing from the economy there will be long-term repercussions throughout the industry, few of which will likely be good. All because TRU couldn't be bothered to maintain its brand and change with the times.

 

They should be an object lesson to the rest of the retail industry that cutting staffing to the bone isn't going to save your business. Just lengthen its demise and the amount of debt you accumulate.

 

Finally my Captain's Chair has arrived. After much thinking about who would get first dibs to sit in it this happened:

 

A chair fit for any leader.

Speaking of chairs, I realized I never tried putting any of my Star Trek figures into the chairs on the Pigs in Space playset. The classic trio is enjoying the Captain's Yacht.

I also recently picked up a couple packs of Barbie accessories and my favorite out of both sets is this little phone. Now Mario can find his favorite restaurants faster.